Lack of Motivation

Introduction

Lack of motivation is right what it says on the label: you just don’t have the will to do something. It can be a specific thing, or it could be anything in general. It can be just because you don’t want to, in which case it would be simple procrastination, or it could stem from something like depression.

Everyone’s experienced a lack of motivation at some point in their lives. You probably remember being in school and just sitting there, staring at a paper you had to do or some other kind of project and thinking “I really don’t want to do this.” And then you ended up going to watch TV or going out with your friends, or really anything that wasn’t doing the work. Another time you might experience it is just not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. You might be getting up earlier than you usually do, or it might be cold outside and you just want to stay under the covers. And that’s completely understandable!

How Lack of Motivation Can Harm Us

However, when lack of motivation starts getting out of control, it can really hurt you. If you let your lack of motivation take over your life, rather than doing something about it or pushing through and doing what you need to anyway, you can end up in a lot of trouble. If you’re constantly late turning in papers for school, you can end up with bad grades and you might not pass the class they’re for. If you drag your feet in the morning when you’re supposed to be going to work, you might end up being constantly late, and you could get fired, or at least demoted, and then you’ll earn less money. Of course, the biggest problem with a lack of motivation is that you just don’t get something done, so even if it isn’t something you have to do, you can end up disappointed with yourself because it was something you wanted to do.

A lack of motivation can also be a symptom of something even worse, though. If you lack motivation in most things in life, if you find that things you used to enjoy doing just aren’t that fun for you anymore, it might not be a simple lack of motivation. It could, in fact, be depression, which could be serious. Part of depression isn’t necessarily feeling bad, but not feeling anything, and many people with it find that they just don’t enjoy anything anymore. They don’t want to do any of their usual hobbies, and they don’t want to go out and spend time with loved ones. If this is how you feel, it’s probably better to find someone to talk with about it, or even go to therapy and see what they think about it.

Effects of Lack of Motivation on Relationships

Because lack of motivation involves lack of a will to do something, relationships can often suffer. Again, it really depends on just how bad it is in your case. If you should be cleaning the house, for instance, and end up just sitting down and reading a book or checking your social media profiles for the afternoon instead, it might not be so bad. Lack of motivation is mostly bad if it’s a repeated offense. After all, if you’re constantly leaving the cleaning not done, eventually your house or apartment is going to get pretty dirty, and if you live with someone else, then they’re going to notice. Either they don’t have the time to clean themselves, or they’ll end up doing it and not liking it because it’s your job.

If your lack of motivation stems from depression, it can have even more of an impact; lack of motivation from depression is much worse, after all, extending to all facets of life. If your significant other wants to go out and spend time together, but you can’t get the motivation to do it, it can put a strain on your relationship. If you stay in bed instead of sending your kids off to school in the morning, they can start worrying about you, which puts stress on them as well.

How Therapy Can Help

A lack of motivation can often come from just not being sure what you want to do with life, or feeling like you’re stuck where you are right now. If that’s how you feel, then going to talk to a therapist can be immensely helpful; you just need to create a plan, and find out where it is you want to go in life so that you’ll have a goal, rather than going day to day and feeling what you’re doing isn’t really getting you anywhere. If your lack of motivation is from depression, therapy will also help. It’s not something you need to go through alone!

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